School of Art+Design

The School of Art+Design offers professional instruction in the visual arts for students possessing outstanding artistic promise and strong motivation for accomplishment.

Philosophically as well as pragmatically, the purpose of the School of Art+Design’s programs is to provide an educational atmosphere in which students and faculty artists and designers work together, engage in critical dialogue, experiment, test their ideas, and learn. The curriculum is based on the belief that artists and designers must have both the traditional tools and current skills of their respective disciplines. In addition, they must have an understanding of contemporary society and technology, an awareness of conceptual and theoretical approaches to art making, and the educational opportunity to explore their abilities through the development of intellectual and technical skills. The curriculum in the School of Art+Design is responsive to both the established traditions and categories of art making and the expanding new concepts, materials, and technologies of the contemporary world.

About Our Alumni
Alumni of the School of Art+Design enjoy successful careers in gallery and museum work, national publications, electronic visualization, master print edition studios, art direction, computer typography, photography, graphic and corporate design, education, graduate study and research, and as independent, exhibiting studio artists. Their success is evidenced in the major awards, grants, and fellowships that they have received, including Guggenheim, Fulbright, Prix de Rome, and MacArthur fellowships and Siskind, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation grants. Alumni work has been exhibited at such prestigious institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Albright Knox Art Gallery. In 2003, a School of Art+Design graduate received the coveted honor of representing the U.S. at the Venice Biennale, the renowned international contemporary art fair.